Our special guest, the ever-charismatic Steve Darling, takes us on a wild ride through his life, starting from a daring leap into the world of live television at the tender age of 23. We chat about the challenges of reporting during one of history's most defining moments – 9/11 – and how that experience shaped his career and worldview. It’s not just about the news, though; it’s about listening – like, really listening! Steve shares his wisdom on the art of hearing people, not just speaking at them, and how this skill is crucial in our increasingly noisy world. We tackle how to take opportunities when they come knocking, stay grounded when the pressure’s on, and share practical tips on using your voice effectively without being all shouty and aggressive.

Takeaways:

• Courage is paramount, especially when faced with high-stakes situations, and it can redefine your career path.
• Listening is not just a skill; it's an art form that allows you to meet people where they are and foster genuine connections.
• In a world filled with noise and divisiveness, asking the right questions can lead to deeper understanding and community engagement.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Ignite Voice Inc.
• BCTV
• Global News
• Fox News
• CNN
• CBC

Your voice is your superpower. Use it. Welcome to Ignite My Voice Becoming Unstoppable. Powered by Ignite Voice Inc. The podcast where voice meets purpose and stories ignite change.

Deep conversations with amazing guests, storytellers, speakers and change makers.

He went to bed, he closed his blinds in a hotel, closed his blinds, put in ear things and went to sleep and woke up the next day and opened the window and the world had happened.

Oh, my God.

Can you imagine that? Like what? Like, that's like, wow.

He was 23 years old, thrown onto live television with no formal training, no roadmap, and suddenly reporting on one of the most defining moments in modern history.

What started as a weekend trial turned into a full time career almost overnight. That moment didn't just shape his career,.

It revealed something deeper. That courage matters most when the stakes are highest. From sports radio to bctv, global news.

To city council, our guest, Steve Darling has built his life on one core skill. Listening. Not performing, not pushing, but actually hearing.

People and meeting them where they are. And in a world that's getting louder, more reactive, more divided, Steve is asking.

A different question about how we show up today.

We talk about taking opportunities when they arrive and being ready when they do.

Staying grounded under pressure and learning how to use your voice without attacking so people actually hear you. Here's Steve Darling.

So I came in and met the station manager and he said, well, the way we do things here is we just put you on the air and see if you survive or die.

Oh, thanks.

And I'm like, so it's tough when you walk into the number one newsroom in the country in North America. It really was the number one TV station in North America.

Huge.

And so I walked in and I worked. So this was on a Thursday and I first on air shift was Saturday and I did Saturday, Sunday doing sports with Jill Krop. And Jill was great.

She's fabulous.

Yeah. And she ended up actually firing me years later. She was the person who let me go at the global when I got caught up in layoffs.

But the only time I've ever been fired in media anyway, and so, yeah, they said. So I went and did it. And then Monday they called and said, we loved you, we want you to be back on next Saturday. So my boss was actually in.

I couldn't even get permission to do it because he was in Whistler with the Canucks. I was supposed to join him, a guy named Gary Rabel. And so I left him. You know Gary, right? Yeah, I left him a message.

I said, you may turn Your tv on Saturday morning I'll be on tv, just so you know. And then sure enough, I was actually literally going on a two week vacation on Monday and I canceled it, but I kept the two weeks.

And then I started global Monday afternoon and that was it. I literally was try out Saturday, Sunday and I was working there Monday morning.

You must have had nerves of steel or guts or both or courage or something because how do you take that and transition and ride or die? You're in, you're out, I think.

Well, it's like, I mean, you guys are broadcasters. You know what it's like you either put up or you shouldn't be in the industry. Right. Like that's the way it works.

You just have to, you have to take advantage and chances when it happens and if it's the right one. And I was, I mean, I felt like I was prepared because I knew what I was talking about. And I think the key for me was two things.

One is Jill was very good with me. She was great, great. And I had great personality.

And so people were able to, you know, I came across as a friendly face for people and they understood it right away and. Yeah. And that. But when you get opportunity, you have to grab it or else it, it doesn't come around again. So.

And that's in any industry, right? Not just broadcast.

No, any industry.

That can be any.

And then 24 years later, it all ended.

Yeah.

Well, that's a good run. 24 Years. Yeah, that's okay.

And you reinvented yourself in a very interesting way.

Yeah.

With what you're doing now.

Yeah, it's good. Yeah.

How do you go from, you know, working in sports and then being on radio to go into television and now to being a counselor? How does that road travel?

So I was so take a step back. So I went to global and I was doing sports for the first three years and then they were looking at adding and I love news.

Like I've always loved news. I love sports, but I really like news. So they were looking for a co host for the morning show. And I love mornings. I love doing the morning show.

Oh, you're one of those who like getting up really early in the morning.

I still get up at like 4am, 4:30 now. I did it for so long, so I'm so used to it. But yeah, so I just, I auditioned and they were like, yeah, we think we're going to bring you on.

And so I switched over to news and I knew I had to sort of make sure I was up to the standards of BCTV and global television. And it was still BCTV at the time. And so I went to the assignment editor, a guy named Clive Jackson, a great guy.

I know Clive Jackson.

Yeah. You know Clive, Yeah. So I went to him and I said, look, I said, I want to. On my off days, I'd like to report. I want to be a reporter.

So I said, I'm not looking for any money, this is on my own time. But I want to rapport because I.

Felt I needed investing in your career,.

I needed to get in the field. And so I did.

And so for the first couple years, I did that on my days off, I'd go out and cover stories, I'd work on Christmas, I'd work wherever I could to try and build up what I thought you had to have as a news resume to be in that newsroom. Because you're looking at some of the greats of our industry. Tony Parsons and Deb Hope and Doriana Tymolo and Brian Coxford and so John Daly.

And so I decided to. And then it just sort of built from there. And we really needed.

When I took over the morning show with Lynn Collier, we really need something big to happen. I remember talking to Kevin Newman, who was doing global national. He was just starting that show here and it was based out of Vancouver.

And I said to him, we were at a. Remember in television, they used to do these big launches where they'd bring all the advertisers in and say, here's the shows that we've got.

You can see at the time, Seinfeld and whoever else was. Whatever show it was. And so I was there and I was talking to Kevin and I said, how excited are you to start global national? He was pretty.

Be careful what you wish for.

Yeah, that was the big story. And so we were on the air. It happened when we were on the air.

It was unbelievable just to see our producer in our ear said, something's going on in the World Trade center because there's a. They think a small biplane had crashed into it because it was just. All you could see was this small little hole.

And then we go on the air at 6 o' clock and we're saying, here's a live shot from New York and this is happening. And then all of a sudden, here comes the other plane.

Cause it happened just after six, and from there it was just really a blur because you knew that America was under attack. And in essence, the world was under attack. And so for the next. I was on the air for like 18 hours. Wow. Kevin came in by about 10, 9, 30.

And I sat with him the rest of the day and then into the evening, feeding him information. Here's what's going on. You know, there's another plane in Pennsylvania. There's. Airports are being told that all planes have to land.

There's a plane that they can't identify near Alaska. Turned out to be. Not turned out. Just couldn't get its radar working. The east tower is collapsing. The west tower. It just kept going on and on and on.

And the interesting thing about it was, and I'm looking at it from my point of view of someone who's sitting. I was 23, and I'm looking at Kevin, who's come from New York. I mean, he was literally living there two months earlier. And so this was all.

And I didn't think about it until later on that, you know, imagine what he must have been going through, thinking that I'd driven by there a million times on the way to work and stuff like that. And so, yeah, so that. That happened.

And then you're just surviving in that moment to give people the information.

Yeah. And because people didn't know what was going on, they were turning their TVs on and saying like, oh, my God. It's funny. Years later, my son, who's.

My son, Hunter, we were at a. He played spring hockey in Langley this past year. And one of his coaches actually was with the. At the New York Rangers training camp.

And so he has a picture in his office of what was happening. But the interesting thing about this story is he went to bed, he closed his blinds in a hotel.

Closed his blinds, put in ear things and went to sleep and woke the next day and opened the window and the world had happened.

Oh, my God.

Can you imagine that? Like what? Like, that's like, wow. That's why I feel that the news industry these days has really been under attack. And it's.

A lot of it is their own making. It really is. I mean, you try to find that independent journalist, which is. Which is great.

But there's also, to me, the story has always been find the story and let people decide where they are. But nowadays it's not like that you're on one side or the other. And From Fox News and their side to cnn, who claims to be independent journalists.

And I like a lot of their hosts. They have. I think they're very good journalists, but there is a somewhat biased peak to what they do as well, because they have to.

And so that's where I think the news industry has really gone off the rails. And that's why I always say I was at Global. I can be honest with you. I was at for 23 years.

And I've never once, not one time have I ever had someone from. Because people always say reporters. I've not had one management person come to me and say, you can't run that story.

Or we need you to say the story like this. Or we need to do something like this. That's never happened.

The only time it's ever happened I've been upfront about this was there was a story about our parent company and all they wanted was their response, which we would get anyway. That's what we want. But we.

That's fair coverage.

Yeah. And you can. And here's what the parent company says and that's fine. But we didn't change our stories and that stuff.

So this whole adage that you're trying to get this party elected and all this kind of thing, you're on this side, it's hogwash. It really is.

I know most of the journalists who are at most of the stations in Vancouver, and I can tell you that 99.9% of them are good, upstanding, strong journalists who work hard every day trying to tell the story.

How do we counter that?

It's really hard because we're doing a podcast. But the podcasters and the influencers. Yeah.

And the people that used to be in their parents basements doing stuff, they're now all becoming mainstream because they've got voices to get. And that's a good thing. It's good to have. But what I want people to understand is you don't take them for gospel. That's the key.

And even if you're not, Steve's talking about critical thought.

Yeah. If you're not a Global fan, that's fine. But how they report the news is one thing. And how CTV does it and CBC and it's all different.

But learn yourself, Find, read about stories. Like, my wife drives her crazy because we watch like a movie or something and I'm like, pick up my phone.

I pick up my phone for people on the radio Land. I pick up my phone and I'm like, I gotta kind of research that. Cause I'M interested in that. And she's like, but that's the kind of person I am.

I'm a journalist. Right. I like that.

Never turns off.

No, you always have to find. I find. And I'll say, did you know this? She goes, I don't care, I'm gonna watch the movie.

So people have go out and take some responsibility for finding the truth themselves and not believing what they see just on social media or whatever. And I tell that to my kids all the time. My son will come out and go, did you know this? It's like, yeah. I said, that's one source on YouTube.

You gotta remember that. There's other. You have to go find out for yourself. You have to do the work.

But that's hard work.

And it's hard for youth that don't have the skills. I mean, that's probably what we teach, right? Is trying to reinstill some of those skills in people, say under 25. Yeah. But the stats are shocking.

Yeah.

I mean, we'll poll our classes and the amount of people who are paying attention to legacy media in any way. It's pretty close to zero. Zero.

And that's okay because they have to change and legacy media has to change. People aren't getting home at 6 o' clock anymore and just turning on the news hour.

They still have great ratings because they're the number one thing. But to me. But there's also. You can find niches in broadcasting and be successful.

To me, morning shows are the most obvious choice to be successful because people still are at home in the morning. Like at nighttime they've got sports, they've got all this kind of stuff. But people always get up in the morning.

They always have a place where they have to go and they want to know what the trap is. Well, I don't know.

Some of our students don't get up.

In the morning, Steve.

But I don't like to get up in the morning.

I'm thinking counter that, Steve, a little bit though, is that the rules have broken, you know, some of the norms that we just assumed would always be there. A separation between opinion and fact. For an anchor that's broken. I mean, there's so many US, especially anchors that.

Well, it depends on who you're talking about. If you're talking about United States, absolutely. But I don't see Sophie Louie coming on after a story and giving her opinion.

I don't see Chris Gaylis doing it. I don't see Kerry Adams doing it. And that's the difference, I think, between do they do it nationally at cbc? Sometimes, sure. But I don't see.

But they're meant to do that. They're clearly defined as that.

But as far as local news is concerned, you very rarely find people who run a story about something and come on and have an opinion about why they think it was wrong or right. Whereas in the US it's the opposite of that. It's. Here's my opinion, Donald Trump did this. Well, here's my opinion on why he did it.

And so that's where that fracture you're talking about, I think, has happened.

But it's fallen into our space, too.

And you can't put the genie back in the bottle. You can't.

And how much does it spill over? I mean, this podcast is international, too.

So some people are kind of looking at these two countries, the US And Canada, and they're curious, like, first of all, how do they become so different? And then does the one elephant override the other? And does this little one carry on with its unique culture and approach to news and everything?

A lot of people look at us and they're curious. Right?

Yeah.

How does it happen?

Well, I think the difference. I mean, when you can go, this is not a new story. Canadians, Americans have always been different. Right. We've always had competitions.

Oh, yeah.

But the difference now is that you have a US President and a cabinet that wants to govern by. By fear and division. And that's what tariffs are. If you don't do it the way we want you to do it, we're gonna slap you with.

We're gonna make it so bad that you have to do it.

We'll bludgeon you.

Yeah. And that's not really how diplomacy is supposed to work.

Diplomacy in a democratic.

Yes. And he won the election by a lot. It was a landslide. He did very well. And he was.

I mean, that's why I always say to people, he's doing exactly what he said he's gonna do. There's nothing that has.

Not a surprise.

There's nothing surprised me about what he's done. He wanted immigration. He won on it. He wanted the economy.

He wanted other countries to pay, which he thought was ripping off the US which really is not correct. He wanted to stop the stem of drugs through the border, which was good. Mexico. Yes. Canada.

I think he's off on his numbers, which have been proven many times over. So I think that he has. And the other thing with him is he's going. Most presidents have time to do things.

He has a short window because he's already served a term, so he can only serve three more terms. I mean, right now, who knows what he may do, but he has to get all of this done in four years, which is a lot.

And his first year has been lightning speed. I don't think anyone's ever seen anything like it.

And I'll give him credit, he has a mandate of what he wants and he's putting it all into play right away.

I'm curious, since you've moved from the journalism, media, broadcast side and moved over to community and civic government, what do we do in terms of policy, in terms of trying to counter that movement that seems so strong in society, brought on partly by tribalism and communication and things?

Yeah, I mean, I think in the end I'm a city councilor, so I worry about the citizens of Port Coquitlam and I find that city councillors that want to work in this job and want to do this job and get elected and they come in with thoughts about, well, I'm going to push this, this, this and this. Well, that's great, but that's not what you're elected for. You're elected to represent every single citizen in that city.

And if you say, I want our whole city to be green and I don't care what it costs, then you're not being realistic because it's expensive and cities cannot afford it. And with the amount of downloading that goes on in a city, it's staggering. And we in Port Coquitlam, sorry, what.

Do you mean by downloading?

So say for instance, I'll give you an example.

So the federal government comes out with a couple of years ago, three or four years ago, said, we're gonna have body worn cameras on all RCMP officers and we're gonna give you. So everyone's gonna get money and we're gonna pay for everything. So that money's all gone and they're not even out. There's no nothing here.

So all of a sudden we get a check, we get a bill from the RCMP that says you owe us $60,000 for body worn cameras. But that's supposed to be covered by this money. Well, that money's already gone and we don't know it's all gone. So they sent us a bill.

So we sent it back. We're not paying it. What do you mean you can't. No one's ever sent a bill back to us. Well, we're not paying it and we still haven't paid it.

Why would we pay for something we don't have right. It's not. Policing is the biggest cost we face in the city. We're not paying for it.

The provincial government opens up a facility in the tri Cities, Redfish Healing, which is a great facility, brings people in there, nurses, doctors, people with conditions that need help.

But the problem is, is that when someone walks away from there because it's a secure facility, but there are gaps in the system where people can walk away. So the RCMP has to institute right away a missing person's report. And even though their psychiatrist said they'll come back, we know this is.

So all of a sudden $300,000 bill between cities to cover policing costs because they have to file missing.

So they've made some changes now through the rcmp because the RCMP act, because of what happened with the missing women's task force here in British Columbia, they had to now put certain ways missing people are dealt with, which is a positive thing. But this situation wasn't that. And so we got nailed with costs on that. So that was a lot of money.

So the RCMP and Redfish have done some stuff to try and mitigate that,.

Which adjust the protocol.

They're working together and so that. But we're still cost there. The government has put in.

Because what was happening was that they didn't have the support services that they were supposed to have. Because there's different types of barriers. There's low barrier, high barrier, medium barrier. This one is more low barrier.

But it was supposed to be high barrier. Which means that if someone's addicted to drugs, there's someone there to help them. There's nurses, there's doctors, all that.

And they do have that, but it's not in a 24 hour care system. So what happened was we'd have people coming into Port Coquitlam and in the parks and causing problems and for the residents.

So we had to employ security guards and people to pick up needles, things like that. Because there's kids playing in the parks. And so that costs. The provincial government's good at saying, okay, we're gonna do this.

But they don't look at all the costs and they just expect the municipalities to pick them up.

You guys pick up the garbage all the time.

You guys figure it out. Housing legislation, there's a great idea.

Yeah, housing legislation's another, the great one. So they decided to put in these new rules. Housing is an issue and they want to fix it. So they put in these new rules.

That takes a lot of the work that a local government would do out of our hands. Bill 44, Bill 47.

And what has happened is that they're saying, well, if you have a property you can put in, you can take down one house and put up six. Well, who's gonna. Where's the stuff coming out of the toilet gonna go?

Because right now that pipe that was put in there 40 years ago is designed for one house. Now if you wanna put six and four people. Yeah, yeah, you put six on a lot.

And those six could be a family upstairs, two suites downstairs, and no parking. So everyone's on the street.

So the infrastructure costs become yours, become.

Ours, or the developer. And so what happens is people are like, oh, this is great, I'm gonna. And I'm gonna make a lot of money.

Yeah, the off site work is gonna be $2 million. And then how like say for instance, a high rise goes up, how the city negotiates to make sure we have daycare, park space.

All that is done in a certain way. This is now all changed because they say, no, we're gonna set. This is the. All you can charge for that.

But it doesn't cover the cost of what a municipality has to cover.

Our planning department has had to cover also the government says we gave you enough money for it, but there wasn't even enough money to even cover half of what the cost.

Not realistic.

That's what downloading is. And it happens all the time. It happens in the provincial government and it happens in the federal government.

And we're at a point now in Por Coquitlam where we've just said, why should our citizens have to bear the cost of you not doing your jobs right? If you're gonna build a redfish healing center, which is a good thing, a really good thing, then it has to be covered properly. You have to.

Because the last thing I wanted to go is what do we do about security, what do we do about this? That has to be included in that it's important to include.

And so if you're going to get municipalities to back things you want to build, then you have to build them properly and you have to put the proper services in there.

Empathy is such a powerful piece to it all. I don't know that empathy's that popular in our current world, but. So, okay, then my follow up question, Steve is king. Steve is King of the world.

That's true.

In your own household, maybe.

No, not there either.

No.

No.

It feels like we're moving in a direction that is not positive for democracy and for people. What action would you take to change the course of the ship?

Well, I mean, to me, I think you have to just be true to what your values are. You're not going to get everything right. No one ever does.

And you may not be able to institute the type of change that you think you would need to be getting to that point. You have to be okay with that. In politics and in government, it's little wins that make the biggest difference.

You're not going to unless you can do something that is going to dramatically change the world. Then you have to take the little wins and move on. But it's the little wins that start to add up to make the big change.

And that's what I think the future of politics has to be is. People have to get little wins, but it has to be little wins for people. And you shouldn't govern just because you want to get reelected again.

You need to be able to govern to make the right decisions moving forward. And it's hard, it's not easy because you've got a lot of things pulling you in all these different directions.

You've got media, you've got constituents, you've got people on the street. You got all these things yelling at you. But in the end, it's all just noise around you and you need to be true with what you're trying to do.

And the other thing is, I think the biggest problem that politicians have a lot of is not having good people around them to make sure that people understand what their points are. That's the key. And I'm not saying spin. There's a difference. Spin is not what I'm saying.

But to understand that spin equals manipulation.

Yes. Doing this because here's where we need to get to. We need to get. I'll give you a good example.

In our city, for instance, so people will go and say, well, you know, there's youth crime. Pick any city, there's youth crime. So how do we deal with it? Well, we could get the cops to come and get a case. So we've done that for years.

And on violent stuff, Yeah, I get 100%. That's the key to it. But we also need to find a place for. To take youths that are not, put them in the position from the beginning.

So we made a conscious effort to start building within our city. We opened up a New community center. We're opening up a new soccer facility. We're putting new arts programs in.

We're putting in a new covered multi sport complex. We're giving people. We have a youth center inside of the arena, and it's inside the community center. It's filled every night with kids.

And so we're finding a way to get kids, some idle hands.

Proactive positivity.

Yes. Trying to push people into finding a better place if they can come to the arena.

If you go to our arena on Friday, Saturday night, there's kids everywhere, Hundreds of them. We made pools free.

Love it.

In the summer, all our outdoor pools are free. You can swim there for no cost. Because we know how hard it is for people. Right. They have no money. It's a tough world out there.

Well, it's getting people to re engage in the community is in a positive way.

We just align more money for a program to allow kids and families that are struggling to be able to put their kids into some of our programs, whether it's bike camps, whatever it is. Because there's nothing worse than having a kid who can't do something because the parents have to work. I mean.

And I brought my son and his hockey team a couple weeks ago to help out, handing out some food hampers at one of the local churches. And I was trying to explain to them that the food banks have changed.

It used to be you see people line up for food banks, and now the demographic is you either choose food or rent. So what do you want to choose? Do you want to have your family on the street or do you want to feed them?

And that's very common now, like taking over all food banks. So we are two parents working, pay the rent.

We have no money for food, so they have to go to the food bank to get food for the month or for a couple of weeks. So that's the decisions that people are starting to make. And in the end. So how do we solve that problem? We solve that by paying people more.

Like, we have to get businesses and we have to support businesses in order to hire more people, to pay more people and to be able to move forward. We're not gonna be able to help everyone. We're always gonna need social services. I get it.

But in the end, we need to bring jobs that people will say, okay, I used to do this and now I can do this, and I can make 15, 20% more. So now the decision is, okay, I can have enough for rent now, but I also can feed my family and those are hard decisions.

Oh, yeah. And there's so many influences.

I mean, do you have kids, both.

Of you younger than mine?

Yeah. The other thing I was thinking, though,.

Is, but just to finish my point, like, I can't even imagine meeting that decision.

Oh, yeah.

You know, I grew up without money. Like, I grew up. You know, our family didn't have a lot of money growing up, and we were, you know, I would.

Times when I'd see them, you know, rolling pennies.

Yeah.

You know, and that's just what it. But. But as a kid, you don't really see that. Right. You see it, but you don't really see it.

And now it's gotten to a point where it's hard to not see it.

I knew we were broke in my family when there was no change in my dad's pockets.

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. And the kids don't understand. Well, I want to go do this bike camp. So we spend.

We subsidize sports, we subsidize art, we subsidize all our programs. Because to me, that's money well spent. I love being challenged. I think it's great.

I think it's the best thing is to someone to come to me and challenge me on something, because I'll say, why. But I like the challenge. I think it's good.

Well, then there's a dialogue, there's a conversation. Then you can understand each other, and then you can have change. Because two people can find that middle ground that you were talking about earlier.

Presumably.

I'll be honest. Politics can be a tough world. It's a murky world. And so you have to be very thick skin. You have to have the ability to let stuff kind of wash off.

And some stuff bothers me, like people say stuff on social media that I know it's not true. It's just factually incorrect. But it still bothers me because if someone to say, well, he doesn't care. That's not true.

That stuff is the stuff that drives me crazy. Cause you're making an assumption on never having talked to me ever. And I always say to people, if you've got a problem.

We had a resident who was very upset, and nobody would ever talk to him because he was just a complainer all the time. So I talk to him all the time. I find him engaging.

And what I found was he was an old soccer coach, and I found the ability to connect with him on something else and then help him on his problem. And so that's how you sort of try to get people. And he may not be. He may not like me ever, which is fine.

But he respects me because at least I call him back. At least I hear him out. And I'll say. And he'll say, I don't think you guys should be doing this. This.

And I'll say, okay, well, I think we should, and here's why. And if he doesn't agree with me, that's fine, but that's why we're doing it.

Well, you put the energy into building trust.

Yes.

Respect and ultimately connection.

That's a formula for connection.

And Kat, we're back to. We're back to connection, aren't we? Connection is everything, is one of our themes.

It is. It really is.

Connection is oxygen.

Yeah. It just. It's. You can make an assumption of someone without ever knowing them. And look, I was on TV for 23 years. I get it.

People make assumptions about all the time. You know, he's this, he's that, he's done this, he's done that. And for me, I mean, I'm a white male.

I mean, Sophie Louie, the stuff she had to deal with on people sending stuff into her and Christy Gardner, Randy Neal and Lynn Collier and all these other people I worked with. You shouldn't be doing this. And you're too. This, and you're too. I mean, it's natural.

You see the best and the worst of things.

You do. You really do. And so I'm not under illusion that it's gonna get better anytime soon, but I can only gauge how I react to things.

And I don't take the bait on stuff. And if someone's upset with me, then they can. I'll sit down and have a conversation with them.

Steve, you're adulting.

Yeah, exactly. No, I act like a baby sometimes. I have a great child.

From journalism to politics, Steve's message is grounded in responsibility and action.

He's about taking the opportunity when it.

Comes, being responsible and using that responsibility. That's what creates real impact in a.

Community, your family, or your team. Real change doesn't come from division.

It comes from trust and respect and a willingness to be challenged.

And maybe that's the real takeaway. You don't need permission to have a voice.

Finding your voice can be difficult. It takes courage.

And that's how our talent developmenter coaches can help you. There's all kinds of tools and techniques.

We show you how to book a coaching session or.

Or join us at a retreat in Mexico in December. Keep an eye and ear out for details.

Ignite my voice dot com. Ignite my voice. Becoming unstoppable. Your voice is your superpower use.